Pages

Monday, April 8, 2013

Site Builders Better at Marketing than Modular Home Builders

I just spent hours looking at site builder websites and guess what I didn't see in a single one of them? I didn't see a house under construction. I only found finished homes with photos of both the outside and inside.

Then I went to a bunch of modular home builder websites and guess what I didn't see? I didn't find very many photos of finished homes and almost none of finished interiors. I did find pictures of houses being set, houses on the production lines, houses being trucked in and houses being weathered in.

In home buying, it is usually the female that buys the home and the male that pays for it. This is quite evident when you visit a site builder's website. Beautiful pictures of kitchens, baths, living areas and even laundry rooms. What you don't see are unfinished basements, garage interiors and workshops. Site builders already know that the 'buyer' wants to see pictures of what they will be living in and able to show off to their friends while the 'payor' could give a rat's hind end if the bath has a whirlpool tub or the kitchen has a refrigerator that looks like it could actually cook meals for the family. They want a workshop they can convert into a "mancave."

One reason that modular home builders and even the modular factories that supply their homes don't have pictures of kitchens, baths, etc, is that they never ask their client if they can come back and take pictures after they move in.

Instead, modular folks, mostly male, focus on male oriented stuff like hammering nails, making sawdust, playing with huge cranes and weathering in the house. "Tooltime" Tim Allen has made his living portraying this stereotype.

If you want the 'Buyer' to want to actually buy your home, you've got to get in touch with your feminine side.I know this is probably not PC but if you want to get more 'Buyers' to want our homes, you need to get with the program. Pay a photographer to take some pictures of your finished homes, both inside and out, and plaster them all over your website. Do you honestly think that a 'Buyer' will email or call you because you have a video of a house set?

When you take your new home prospects to the modular home factory for a tour, make sure you linger in finished kitchens and baths. Call your sales rep and ask if any of the homes in the yard have spectacular kitchens or floor plans and ask them to have the module open for you to show your prospects.

'Buyers' don't care what the 'Payors' want. They only want what will address their wants and needs.

1 comment:

Rick Frostman
said...

I made the mistake many years ago of talking to the husband and practically ignored the wife. Learned years later that she liked my work but hated my attitude toward her. Lost the house sale. I learned this lesson the hard way.